Welcome to a recap for episode 303 of Orange Is the New Black, a docu-drama about the last, bloody effort of men to thwart the inevitable genesis of an earth-saving matriarchal society.

Norma is performing a morning blessing when Luschek grouses into her cubicle to wake up Nicky for an electrical emergency. Surprise, though: It is not an electrical emergency. Luschek has recruited his sister’s husband to unload Nicky and Boo’s super secret stash of zillion dollar heroin. The tantrum he throws when Nicky tells him the drugs are missing is really special. He stomps his feet, he pulls his hair, he says he’s going to give Nicky a shot. She goes, “You’re going to give me a shot for not selling you drugs?”

Whenever Luschek whips out his old Lois Lane-style reporter notebook and threatens to give someone a shot, I imagine him going to Caputo and turning in a little piece of notebook paper with crayon notes scrawled on it and a lot of frowny faces. He kicks the wall and explains that women aren’t in jail because they’re criminals, but because they’re bad at being criminals, and then he takes his toys and he goes home.

Hey wake up, you’ll never believe what happened on the Game of Thrones finale.

Did Arya ride one of Dany’s dragons into King’s Landing and kill all the men because if not leave me alone.

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Flashback! Nicky is hanging out in Brooklyn with a few buddies trying to score some heroin for the weekend, and when their dealer shows up without any, she gets so agitated she steals his taxi. Well, no. First she whoops, “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!” And then she steals his taxi. And immediately smashes it into another parked car, before having a chance to reflect on the fact that Tami Taylor would never approve of that kind of behavior. Although, Julie Taylor would absolutely pull such bratty shenanigans, so maybe Nicky wasn’t so far off with her Friday Night Lights battle cry. Anyway, that’s how she ended up in jail. The first time.

In real-time in the library, Piper and Alex are hate-fucking. Just pulling each other’s hair and pushing each other down and around and debating who’s the most Slytherin between them. Um, both? Both of you assholes are the most Slytherin? You sold me out! Slap. You sold me out! Smooch. You’re a narcissistic psychopath! Shove. You’re an opportunistic asshole! Hair yank.

You can tell, even though they don’t say it, that Piper and Alex think they invented angry fucking.

Hate is a strong word.

But I really really really don’t like you.

Outside in the Vitamin D, Daya is planning her wedding with Flaca and Maritza and Maria, who are all full of advice about flowers and caterers and dresses and engagement photos. The only minor hiccup is they can’t choose a wedding date because they’re all getting released different times. Maria takes the hardline, all, “None of us will befriends after we get out of here; in fact, most of us will end up here again, because the system is so stacked against women of color it’ll chew us up and spit us back into Litchfield before we even have a chance to get used to sleeping on a mattress again.”

Maybe Bennett decided to go to law school with Dean Thomas from Harry Potter or something.

The Grandma Farming Co-Op is working in the garden, trying to figure out the most profitable crops to plant — amazingly, Frieda suggests corn so they can rent it out for sex hijinks once it gets tall enough — when Healey ambles on up like a mansplaining cowboy from the days of yore and asks Red to mediate some arguments between him and his wife. He thinks it’s a language barrier that’s keeping them apart, instead of thinking the correct thing, which is that he’s an angry, entitled shitbird with misogynistic leanings and an inexplicable lesbian chip on his shoulder. Also, he bought a wife. Red agrees to do it, though, because she has never seen an angle she can’t work.

Do you want a hug, or…?

No, if you breathe on me, I might catch your enthusiasm.

The Office of Berdie Rogers, Compassionate HBIC. Alex has a hickey but she insists it’s not a hickey. She says she punched herself in the throat or whatever misanthropic thing. Rogers is super unimpressed and unintimidated by Alex’s aggressive better-thank-you over-it-ness and invites her to the improv drama class she’s teaching today. Alex would rather be trampled by a wooly mammoth/fed to sharks/etc. than go to a drama class, and because her thing isn’t just feeling nihilistic but also spreading her nihilism, she identifies what Berdie holds dear, zooms in on it, and tries to bludgeon it to death.

Oh, you wanna make a difference? Yeah, I get it. You’re one of the good guys. But guess what? We all think we’re good guys. I used to work for a drug dealer who wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in your head if you crossed him, or if you stopped being useful to him, but in his mind, he’s still a good guy. Heroin Robin Hood because he cut out the Mexican cartels and passed on the savings to the consumer, and he never cut his shit with brick dust. And you’re not just another shill taking a paycheck from an evil system of oppression, ’cause you’re fighting it from the inside, with drama class. Fine. Whatever you need to tell yourself to get by. But excuse me if I don’t want to spend my precious time catering to the delusion that you’re making a difference. I have my own quilt of lies to sew.

Rogers becomes my favorite immediately because she smiles so sincerely and says, “That was a great speech! I’d love to hear it again, in drama class!”

Girl, I’m sorry, but you’re a Tina Kennard.

I’M A DANA I’M A DANA I’M A DANA!

It’s no surprise that Nicky stole her own drugs, or that she hides them back in the same room in a different location, or that Soso basically thwarts Nicky’s creepin’ to monologue about how they can definitely still be friends even though they’ve done some hardcore scissoring with each other because there’s no point in trying to avoid hanging out because they are in prison after all so it’s not like they can get away from each other and Soso doesn’t really even have a best friend in here and isn’t this the way lesbians make best friends, by sleeping with each other and then breaking up? Nicky finally snaps at Soso to zip it and skedaddle, and hides her heroin up in the ceiling.

Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior writer who lives in New York City with her partner, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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45 Comments

I was sad to see Nicky go. I don’t read spoilers so I was completely shocked that it happened. I missed her all the rest of the season.

I don’t know if the writers wanted us to be turned on by Piper and Alex’s hate-fucking but I was so far from that. I didn’t find those scenes sexy at all. And while the actresses may have chemistry(though that is subjective), I just don’t care anymore. All of their scenes these days leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. I am so glad that I don’t watch this show for them or I would have quit watching a long time ago. Thank God, everyone else is so much more interesting. Piper and Alex(to a lesser extent), look whiny by comparison.

I agree every time Piper and Alex are on I’m thinking to myself “Gee maybe we could give a sex scene to Sophia one of these days” or “I wonder what Taystee and Poussey are up too?” I mean they’re just not that interesting.

it is a massive testament to natasha lyonne that she has me rooting for a scheming, lying junkie to turn it around like she keeps promising she’s going to. i hope we get nicky back next season!

and i agree with you about piper and alex thinking they’re too good to be in there, although part of me feels like alex was sliiiiightly more aware that this was a potential consequence of their actions.

I had a bad day but reading this made me cackle and all of my roommates think I’m INSANE. I’m probably going to be thinking about the phrase “masturbating to the sounds of their own voices” for many, many days. I’m still giggling about it.

I agree with you about Piper and Alex, Heather. I’m having a hard time getting through the season because I give no fucks about them.

Do you think Healy owns a meninist t-shirt? Because I imagine that Healy is always wearing a meninist t-shirt under his CO uniform, and that at least makes me giggle while he’s saying dumb shit.

Perfect recap, just perfect.
I missed Nicky so much for the rest of the season. Also I agree, I’m not feeling the Alex and Piper thing. (Okay…yes, their scenes were hot af.) Too much back-and-forth hate and love and it’s just a weird relationship that I don’t see having a healthy future. Reminds me of the one relationship I’ve had. And that shit was dumb.

Poussey doing the book elegy in her I’m-tough-but-in-a-cute-way persona was the cutest cuteness.

Any opinions on whether the heroin that Caputo found was actually stashed there by Nicky for later (which seems like a not very smart idea and I don’t understand why she wouldn’t have just taken it back down to the laundry room or wherever), or by Luschek so that he could screw her out of the 20% (which also seems unlikely because he could just… not give her the 20%)? Neither scenario makes much sense to me.

I assumed that Nicky stashed it there because she couldn’t let it all go. She didn’t really seem like she was angry when she was carried away. To me it seemed more like she was pissed at herself for fucking up again because of drugs. But I could be very wrong, I haven’t finished the season yet so I’m not sure if it comes up again!

I think your right that it seems really odd for Nicky to stash it under Luschek’s desk rather than put it somewhere where it had gone undiscovered for so long. I mean, OF COURSE someone was going to find it eventually. I wonder if there was a bit of self-sabotage involved. She knew that it was possible for her to get heroin in minimum security, and she knew that if she started using again she would probably die. So maybe getting caught and transferred to max is the better option?

I think the more likely answer is that they needed a way to get Nicky busted and that seemed convenient. I’m not at all surprised that she held on to some, but I’m with you that the placement was weird.

I imagined Nicky had only a couple of seconds to hide it somewhere — like if Luschek turned away for a moment — and she saw the desk and went for it, meaning to retrieve it when she had the chance later.

I’m pretty sure that Nicky was the one to hide it though, from her panicked look when they started searching.

I think it’s Nicky, too, just because I felt like the theme of the episode was that she was going to find a way to self-destruct no matter what. Blodhound for Oblivion and all that. And on the way down the hill, she seemed resigned to it being her fault. She’s the first one to shout about something not being fair.

The end of this episode really had me bawling my eyes out, particularly how Red feels a sense of responsibility for Nicky. You can tell in some sense Red feels like she failed as a prison mom in looking out for Nicky, but at the same time you see that Nicky’s problems go back so much further and probably have quite a bit to do with her actual mother, and Red couldn’t have stopped Nicky’s self-destruction.

Everyone I know watches the show because of Alex and Piper so trust me you’re not alone! I’d like to see what would happen if some people got their wish and they weren’t on anymore. My guess is that would be the last season for sure.

I am so happy with the use of the captions to make silly pop culture references. Was especially pleased with the Fun Home runner.

Heather, you do such a great job of distilling the essence/subtext of scenes/jokes into both different jokes and poignant words. (I realize now that this is just kinda a job description of recapping. Still great though!)

The drama scene with Alex and Piper was hands down one of the best written, directed and especially acted scenes ever on the show. Laura and Taylor played the hell out of the subtext of that scene and played it to perfection. I would’ve liked Alex waiting longer to forgive Piper but it played out so perfectly that I can’t argue with it. I will miss their hate sex though ;)

” but Piper and Alex think they’re too good to be here. There’s this superiority and exclusivity to the way they act, like yeah they sold drugs, but they’re pretty white women who sold drugs, so it’s extra unfair that they have to go to jail for it”

Damn that’s some huge projection. LOL. There is literally nothing in the show to support your projection-claim, particularly for Alex. Sounds like you’re just bitter they’re “pretty white women” who have a tumultuous ongoing relationship you dislike and they get screen time.

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